Pakistan's Islamic blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man

Mohamed Imran had been accused, jailed, tried and cleared. But his so-called crime was blasphemy. He was meant to have said something derogatory about the prophet Mohammed, so in Pakistan justice worked a differently. A couple of weeks after he returned to his small farm on the outskirts of Islamabad, his so-called crime caught up with him. Two gunmen burst into the shoe shop where he was talking to a friend. Imran tried to duck, but the gunmen found their target and Pakistan's Islamic blasphemy laws claimed another victim. Two high-profile politicians have been assassinated in 2011 for their criticism of the Muslim blasphemy laws: Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities minister (and Christian) Shahbaz Bhatti. Some observers see their deaths and the climate of Muslim rage around the blasphemy laws as symptomatic of a broader rise in Islamic fundamentalist tendencies in Pakistan. It's reported that more than 30 of the hundreds of people convicted under the blasphemy laws have been killed by vigilantes.